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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Long-Run Impacts Of Public Industrial Investment On Local Development And Economic Mobility: Evidence From World War Ii, Andrew Garin, Jonathan Rothbaum
The Long-Run Impacts Of Public Industrial Investment On Local Development And Economic Mobility: Evidence From World War Ii, Andrew Garin, Jonathan Rothbaum
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies the long-run effects of government-led construction of manufacturing plants on the regions where they were built and on individuals from those regions. Specifically, we examine publicly financed plants built in dispersed locations outside of major urban centers for security reasons during the United States’ industrial mobilization for World War II. Wartime plant construction had large and persistent impacts on local development, characterized by an expansion of relatively high-wage manufacturing employment throughout the postwar era. These benefits were shared by incumbent residents; we find men born before WWII in counties where plants were built earned $1,200 (in 2020 …
Centering Work: Integration And Diffusion Of Workforce Development Within The U.S. Manufacturing Extension Network, Nichola Lowe, Greg Schrock, Matthew D. Wilson, Rumana Rabbani, Allison Forbes
Centering Work: Integration And Diffusion Of Workforce Development Within The U.S. Manufacturing Extension Network, Nichola Lowe, Greg Schrock, Matthew D. Wilson, Rumana Rabbani, Allison Forbes
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
As the U.S. economy rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic, strategies that promote long-term transformation toward high-quality jobs will be critical. This includes workplace-improving interventions that enable employers to upgrade existing jobs, often while enhancing their own competitive position. This paper focuses on the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a national network of federally funded centers that support small and medium-sized manufacturing firms. We document the range of workforce- and workplace-enhancing strategies that MEP centers have adopted since the network’s inception in the mid-1990s. While workforce development is unevenly implemented across today’s MEP network, leading centers within the network are devising transformative strategies …
Place-Based Consequences Of Person-Based Transfers: Evidence From Recessions, Brad J. Hershbein, Bryan A. Stuart
Place-Based Consequences Of Person-Based Transfers: Evidence From Recessions, Brad J. Hershbein, Bryan A. Stuart
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies how government transfers respond to changes in local economic activity that emerge during recessions. Local labor markets that experience greater employment losses during recessions face persistent relative decreases in earnings per capita. However, these areas also experience persistent increases in transfers per capita, which offset 16 percent of the earnings loss on average. The increase in transfers is driven by unemployment insurance in the short run, and medical, retirement, and disability transfers in the long run. Our results show that nominally place-neutral transfer programs redistribute considerable sums of money to places with depressed economic conditions.
Long-Run Effects On Employment Rates Of Local Demand Shocks, Across And Within Local Labor Markets, Timothy J. Bartik
Long-Run Effects On Employment Rates Of Local Demand Shocks, Across And Within Local Labor Markets, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates the long-run effects on a county’s prime-age employment rate of labor demand shocks to both the county and its overlying commuting zone (CZ). These effects are allowed to vary with local “distress” (baseline employment rate of the county or CZ), and with the size of the demand shock. In more distressed CZs, a county’s employment rate is more affected by county or CZ shocks. As a result, targeting or reallocating jobs to more distressed CZs will tend to raise employment rates. If a county is relatively distressed compared to its CZ, targeting job shocks at that county …
Measuring Local Job Distress, Timothy J. Bartik
Measuring Local Job Distress, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
In this paper, estimates are presented on short-run effects of demand shocks on a local labor market’s employment to population ratio (employment rate). Based on the estimates, commuting zones (CZs) better define a local labor market than counties, because both employment and employment rate effects exhibit large spillovers across counties within a CZ. In addition, the estimates suggest that demand shock effects vary, by an amount that is both statistically and substantively significant, with a CZ’s prior overall employment rate.
Warding Off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, And Nimbys, Evan Mast
Warding Off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, And Nimbys, Evan Mast
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Local control of land-use regulation creates a not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) problem that can suppress housing construction, contributing to rising prices and potentially slowing economic growth. I study how increased local control affects housing production by exploiting a common electoral reform—changing from “at-large” to “ward” elections for town council. These reforms, which are not typically motivated by housing markets, shrink each representative’s constituency from the entire town to one ward. Difference-in-differences estimates show that this decentralization decreases housing units permitted by 24 percent, with 47 percent and 12 percent effects on multi- and single-family units. The effect on multifamily is larger in …
Supply Shock Versus Demand Shock: The Local Effects Of New Housing In Low-Income Areas, Brian J. Asquith, Evan Mast, Davin Reed
Supply Shock Versus Demand Shock: The Local Effects Of New Housing In Low-Income Areas, Brian J. Asquith, Evan Mast, Davin Reed
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We study the local effects of new market-rate housing in low-income areas using microdata on large apartment buildings, rents, and migration. New buildings decrease nearby rents by 5 to 7 percent relative to locations slightly farther away or developed later, and they increase in-migration from low-income areas. Results are driven by a large supply effect—we show that new buildings absorb many high-income households—that overwhelms any offsetting endogenous amenity effect. The latter may be small because most new buildings go into already-changing areas. Contrary to common concerns, new buildings slow local rent increases rather than initiate or accelerate them.
Do Rent Increases Reduce The Housing Supply Under Rent Control? Evidence From Evictions In San Francisco, Brian J. Asquith
Do Rent Increases Reduce The Housing Supply Under Rent Control? Evidence From Evictions In San Francisco, Brian J. Asquith
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Rent control balances strong tenant protections with supply-side incentives for landlords. However, cities with rent control are also some of the United States' most unaffordable, prompting questions about how well these incentives are working. I examine how controlled landlords change their housing supply in response to price increases using a well-identified hyperlocal demand shock the privately operated commuter shuttle systems in San Francisco. Controlled landlords increased market withdrawal filings and became less likely to create vacancies via evictions in response to a shuttle stop placement. Policies raising barriers to market withdrawals prompted controlled landlords to respond my increasing their at-fault …
Should Place-Based Jobs Policies Be Used To Help Distressed Communities?, Timothy J. Bartik
Should Place-Based Jobs Policies Be Used To Help Distressed Communities?, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Should policymakers seek to increase jobs in particular local labor markets? Yes, but only if these policies are well targeted and designed. Encouraging job growth in distressed places can cause persistent gains in employment-to-population ratios. But our current place-based jobs policies, under which state and local governments provide long-term tax incentives to megacorporations, are poorly targeted and designed. Such incentives are as large in nondistressed areas as in distressed areas, and they are excessively costly. What reforms are needed? First, job growth policies should target distressed areas. Second, tax incentives should be focused on high-multiplier businesses, such as high-tech firms. …
The Effect Of New Market-Rate Housing Construction On The Low-Income Housing Market, Evan Mast
The Effect Of New Market-Rate Housing Construction On The Low-Income Housing Market, Evan Mast
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Increasing supply is frequently proposed as a solution to rising housing costs. However, there is little evidence on how new market-rate construction—which is typically expensive—affects the market for lower quality housing in the short run. I begin by using address history data to identify 52,000 residents of new multifamily buildings in large cities, their previous address, the current residents of those addresses, and so on. This sequence quickly adds lower-income neighborhoods, suggesting that strong migratory connections link the low-income market to new construction. Next, I combine the address histories with a simulation model to estimate that building 100 new market-rate …
Local Job Multipliers In The United States: Variation With Local Characteristics And With High-Tech Shocks, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland
Local Job Multipliers In The United States: Variation With Local Characteristics And With High-Tech Shocks, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper provides new estimates of local job multipliers, the ratio of total jobs generated to some initial number of jobs created from a demand shock. Multipliers greatly affect benefits versus costs of local job-creation policies. These new estimates rely on improved methodology and data. The methodology better captures dynamic effects of demand shocks, specifies the model so that demand shocks are more comparable, and is more general in the types of demand shocks that are considered. The data has more industry detail than that used in previous studies. The local job multipliers estimated tend to be about one-quarter lower …
Striking A Balance: A National Assessment Of Economic Development Incentives, Mary Donegan, T. William Lester, Nichola Lowe
Striking A Balance: A National Assessment Of Economic Development Incentives, Mary Donegan, T. William Lester, Nichola Lowe
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The use of incentive packages has intensified as local governments compete for new plants and corporate relocations, and as private firms increasingly demand a deal. While incentives promise jobs and tax revenue, scholars and practitioners criticize their high cost and limited accountability. Through a comparison of matched establishments, this paper explores how governmental incentive-granting strategy impacts incentive performance. We examine the overall impact of incentives and whether incentives granted to smaller firms perform better. Using economic development budget data, we also assess the state’s overall approach to economic development to determine which strategies are prioritized through funding. By showing that …
"But For" Percentages For Economic Development Incentives: What Percentage Estimates Are Plausible Based On The Research Literature?, Timothy J. Bartik
"But For" Percentages For Economic Development Incentives: What Percentage Estimates Are Plausible Based On The Research Literature?, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper reviews the research literature in the United States on effects of state and local “economic development incentives.” Such incentives are tax breaks or grants, provided by state or local governments to individual firms, that are intended to affect firms’ decisions about business location, expansion, or job retention. Incentives’ benefits versus costs depend greatly on what percentage of incented firms would not have made a particular location/expansion/retention decision “but for” the incentive. Based on a review of 34 estimates of “but for” percentages, from 30 different studies, this paper concludes that typical incentives probably tip somewhere between 2 percent …
Economic Shocks And Crime: Evidence From The Brazilian Trade Liberalization, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Rodrigo R. Soares, Gabriel Ulyssea
Economic Shocks And Crime: Evidence From The Brazilian Trade Liberalization, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Rodrigo R. Soares, Gabriel Ulyssea
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies the effect of changes in economic conditions on crime. We exploit the 1990s trade liberalization in Brazil as a natural experiment generating exogenous shocks to local economies. We document that regions exposed to larger tariff reductions experienced a temporary increase in crime following liberalization. Next, we investigate through what channels the trade-induced economic shocks may have affected crime. We show that the shocks had significant effects on potential determinants of crime, such as labor market conditions, public goods provision, and income inequality. We propose a novel framework exploiting the distinct dynamic responses of these variables to obtain …
New Evidence On State Fiscal Multipliers: Implications For State Policies, Timothy J. Bartik
New Evidence On State Fiscal Multipliers: Implications For State Policies, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
When state and local governments engage in balanced budget changes in taxes and spending, what fiscal multiplier effects do such policies have on creating local jobs? Traditionally, the view has been that possible job-creation effects of such state and local “demand-side” policies are smaller, second-order effects. Such effects might be worthwhile to take into consideration when a state or local government balances its budget during a recession, but the effects were believed to be of modest magnitude, and not of major importance for more general state and local public policies. However, recent estimates of fiscal multiplier effects of state and …
Dynamic Responses To Labor Demand Shocks: Evidence From The Financial Industry In Delaware, Russell Weinstein
Dynamic Responses To Labor Demand Shocks: Evidence From The Financial Industry In Delaware, Russell Weinstein
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper analyzes an important shock to local labor demand in the financial services sector: firm relocation to Delaware following a Supreme Court ruling and state legislation in the 1980s. Using synthetic controls and bordering states, I find significant effects on employment growth, the unemployment rate, and participation in the first decade. Employment spillovers to the nontradable sector and migration appear larger than estimates from shocks to the tradable sector. Effects persist for 10 to 20 years after Delaware loses its original policy-induced advantage. The shift towards a low unemployment sector explains this persistence, rather than direct productivity effects or …
Valuing Public Goods More Generally: The Case Of Infrastructure, David Albouy, Arash Farahani
Valuing Public Goods More Generally: The Case Of Infrastructure, David Albouy, Arash Farahani
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We examine the relationship between local public goods, prices, wages, and population in an equilibrium inter-city model. Non-traded production, federal taxes, and imperfect mobility all affect how public goods (or “amenities” more broadly) should be valued from data. Reinterpreting the estimated effects of public infrastructure on prices and wages in Haughwout (2002), we find infrastructure over twice as valuable with our more general model. New estimates based on more years, cities, and data-sets indicate stronger wage and positive population effects of infrastructure. These imply higher values of infrastructure to firms, and also to households if moving costs are substantial.
Who Wins In An Energy Boom? Evidence From Wage Rates And Housing, Grant D. Jacobsen
Who Wins In An Energy Boom? Evidence From Wage Rates And Housing, Grant D. Jacobsen
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper presents evidence on the distributional effects of energy extraction by examining the recent U.S. energy boom. The boom increased local wage rates in almost every major occupational category. The increase occurred regardless of whether the occupation experienced a corresponding change in employment, suggesting a more competitive labor market that benefited local workers. Local housing values and rental prices both increased, thereby benefiting landowners. For renters, the increase in prices was completely offset by a contemporaneous increase in income. The results indicate that bans on drilling have negative monetary consequences for a large share of local residents.
The Production And Stock Of College Graduates For U.S. States, John V. Winters
The Production And Stock Of College Graduates For U.S. States, John V. Winters
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The stock of human capital in an area is important for regional economic growth and development. However, highly educated workers are often quite mobile, and there is a concern that public investments in college graduates may not benefit the state if the college graduates leave the state after finishing their education. This paper examines the relationship between the production of college graduates from a state and the stock of college graduates residing in the state using microdata from the decennial census and American Community Survey. The relationship is examined across states and across cohorts within states. The descriptive analysis suggests …
Migration And Housing Price Effects Of Place-Based College Scholarships, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland
Migration And Housing Price Effects Of Place-Based College Scholarships, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Place-based college scholarships, such as the Kalamazoo Promise, provide students who live in a particular place, and/or who attend a particular school district, with generous college scholarships. An important potential benefit from such “Promise programs” is their short-term effects on local economic development. Generous Promise scholarships provide an incentive for families to locate in a particular place, which may change migration patterns, and potentially boost local employment and housing prices. Using data from the American Community Survey, this paper estimates the average effects of eight relatively generous Promise programs on migration rates and housing prices in their local labor market. …
Jobless Capital? The Role Of Capital Subsidies, Carlianne E. Patrick
Jobless Capital? The Role Of Capital Subsidies, Carlianne E. Patrick
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Using tax abatements, financial incentives, and public investments to attract (or retain) firms is the primary economic development tool for many local governments. Often local job creation policies focus on increasing capital through grants, low-interest financing, and other economic development incentives. Theory predicts that capital subsidies induce firm behaviors that limit their job creation effects. This paper employs the Incentives Environment Index, constructed from state constitutional provisions that limit and structure the ability of state and local governmental entities to aid private enterprises, and five-year county panels to test theoretical predictions on county capital expenditure and input mixes as well …
How Effects Of Local Labor Demand Shocks Vary With Local Labor Market Conditions, Timothy J. Bartik
How Effects Of Local Labor Demand Shocks Vary With Local Labor Market Conditions, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates how effects of shocks to local labor demand on local labor market outcomes vary with initial local economic conditions. The data are on U.S. metro areas from 1979 to 2011. The paper finds that demand shocks to local job growth have greater effects in reducing local unemployment rates if the local economy is initially depressed than if the local economy is booming. Demand shocks have greater effects on local wage rates if the local unemployment rate is initially low, but lesser effects if local job growth is initially high. These different effects of local demand shocks imply …
State Incentives For Innovation, Star Scientists, And Jobs: Evidence From Biotech, Enrico Moretti, Daniel J. Wilson
State Incentives For Innovation, Star Scientists, And Jobs: Evidence From Biotech, Enrico Moretti, Daniel J. Wilson
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We evaluate the effects of state-provided financial incentives for biotech companies, which are part of a growing trend of placed-based policies designed to spur innovation clusters. We estimate that the adoption of subsidies for biotech employers by a state raises the number of star biotech scientists in that state by about 15 percent over a three-year period. A 10 percent decline in the user cost of capital induced by an increase in R&D tax incentives raises the number of stars by 22 percent. Most of the gains are due to the relocation of star scientists to adopting states, with limited …
Predictors Of Employment Growth And Unemployment In U.S. Central Cities, 1990-2010, Laura Wolf-Powers
Predictors Of Employment Growth And Unemployment In U.S. Central Cities, 1990-2010, Laura Wolf-Powers
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper considers employment growth and unemployment from 1990-2010 in a cross-section of cities in light of practical tools that city governments have at their disposal to provide relief. In particular, I test educational attainment (both initial levels and growth over time) and public capital investment as influences on job growth and changes in unemployment rates in 83 central cities in the United States. Change in educational attainment over time is suggestive of causing higher job growth and lower unemployment. The implication is that initiatives to attract and retain college-educated professionals and investments in increasing college attainment among incumbent residents …
An Analysis Of The Employment Effects Of The Washington High Technology Business And Occupation (B&O) Tax Credit: Technical Report, Timothy J. Bartik, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
An Analysis Of The Employment Effects Of The Washington High Technology Business And Occupation (B&O) Tax Credit: Technical Report, Timothy J. Bartik, Kevin M. Hollenbeck
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates the effects of an R&D tax credit in the state of Washington on job creation. The research uses micro-data on the job creation and tax credits received by individual firms in the state of Washington from 2004 to 2009. We correct for the endogeneity of R&D tax credits received by individual firms by using instrumental variables based in part on national industry factor shares for R&D. We estimate that this tax credit created jobs, but at a high cost. The cost per job-year created is estimated to be between $40,000 and $50,000. The credit was so high …
Simulating The Effects Of Michigan's Mega Tax Credit Program On Job Creation And Fiscal Benefits, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek
Simulating The Effects Of Michigan's Mega Tax Credit Program On Job Creation And Fiscal Benefits, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper simulates job and fiscal impacts of Michigan’s MEGA tax credit program for job creation. Under plausible assumptions about how such credits affect business location decisions, the net costs per job created of the MEGA program are simulated to be of modest size. The job creation impacts of MEGA are simulated to be considerably larger than devoting similar dollar resources to general business tax cuts. The simulation methodology developed here is applicable to incentives in other states.
Mediating Incentive Use: A Time-Series Assessment Of Economic Development Deals In North Carolina, T. William Lester, Nichola Lowe, Allan Freyer
Mediating Incentive Use: A Time-Series Assessment Of Economic Development Deals In North Carolina, T. William Lester, Nichola Lowe, Allan Freyer
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
State incentive granting for the purpose of firm retention or recruitment remains highly controversial and is often portrayed as antithetical to long-range economic development planning. This paper uses quasi-experimental methods to measure the impact of state-level economic development incentives on employment growth at the establishment level in North Carolina. Using North Carolina’s rich history of strategic planning and sector-based economic development as a backdrop, we develop a theory of sectoral “mediation.” This enables us to compare the effectiveness of incentives offered in mediated and nonmediated industries and show that when incentives are coupled with sectoral economic development efforts they generate …
Including Jobs In Benefit-Cost Analysis, Timothy J. Bartik
Including Jobs In Benefit-Cost Analysis, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Public policies may affect employment by directly creating jobs, facilitating job creation, or augmenting labor supply. In labor markets with high unemployment, such employment changes may have significant net efficiency benefits, which should be included in benefit-cost analyses.
The research literature offers diverse recommendations on measuring employment benefits. Many of the recommendations rely on arbitrary assumptions. The resulting employment benefit estimates vary widely.
This paper reviews this literature, and offers recommendations on how to better measure employment benefits using estimable parameters. Guidance is provided on measuring policy-induced labor demand, estimating the demand shock’s impact on labor market outcomes, and translating …
Offshoring And The State Of American Manufacturing, Susan N. Houseman, Christopher Kurz, Paul A. Lengermann, Benjamin R. Mandel
Offshoring And The State Of American Manufacturing, Susan N. Houseman, Christopher Kurz, Paul A. Lengermann, Benjamin R. Mandel
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The rapid growth of offshoring has sparked a contentious debate over its impact on the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has recorded steep employment declines yet strong output growth—a fact reconciled by the notable gains in manufacturing productivity. We maintain, however, that the dramatic acceleration of imports from developing countries has imparted a significant bias to the official statistics. In particular, the price declines associated with the shift to low-cost foreign suppliers generally are not captured in input cost and import price indexes. To assess the implications of offshoring bias for manufacturing productivity and value added, we implement the bias correction …
The Employment And Fiscal Effects Of Michigan's Mega Tax Credit Program, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek
The Employment And Fiscal Effects Of Michigan's Mega Tax Credit Program, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates that Michigan's MEGA tax credit program to attract and retain businesses has large employment and fiscal benefits. MEGA provides discretionary tax credits to businesses, with the tax credit tied to the personal income taxes paid by employees on the new or retained jobs. We estimate the economic effects of MEGA using the Upjohn Institute's REMI model, and the research literature on how business location decisions respond to taxes. We estimate the fiscal effects of MEGA based on the research literature on how government spending and revenue respond to state personal income and population. The estimates suggest a …